Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to electronic devices, and more particularly to electronic navigation devices.
Background Art
Electronic devices, and in particular portable, wireless communication devices, are becoming increasingly technologically advanced. In response, people are becoming more dependent upon their portable electronic devices. Only a few years ago a mobile telephone was a novelty item used only for making telephone calls. By contrast, people today rely upon “smartphones” to keep up with their calendars, address books, music collections, photo albums, and so forth.
In the world of navigation, electronic navigation systems, be they vehicular, handheld, embedded in an electronic device, or other, are rapidly replacing maps and other traditional navigational tools due to their convenience of use. For example, many smartphones now include map applications that provide navigation instructions to a user so that the user can travel from an origination location to a destination location. Some electronic navigation devices include a location detection device, such as a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, which can determine the current location of the system using GPS satellites. Using map data located either on the device or in a remote map server, the navigation system can display a map and navigation instructions to the user.
Traditional navigation systems frequently are configured to select a route from point “A” to point “B” based solely to optimize total travel time or distance. This is often less than ideal in that it may not meet the full needs of a requestor. One problem with prior art navigation systems is that are designed upon the presumption that travel time or distance is the highest priority interest when selecting a navigation route from multiple navigation routes. However, for many people time or distance is not the foremost consideration. Other factors can be more important. There is thus a need for an improved navigation system and corresponding method for presenting navigation routes selected based upon criteria other than time or distance.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure.